The general consensus was that José Mourinho had erred on playing André Schürrle as a false nine on Wednesday night, yet it was after he had gone off to be replaced by Fernando Torres that Paris Saint-Germain scored twice. That's a simplistic way of looking at things, and Torres had barely been on the field when David Luiz conceded a needless free-kick and then put through his own goal to give PSG the lead, but it does tally with Mourinho's post-match claim that Chelsea had "controlled" the game until Torres came on because of the way Schürrle kept "dropping deep".
To say they controlled it might be a stretch, but it is true that, once Chelsea had conceded the first goal, they seemed comfortable for much of the rest of the time Schürrle was on the pitch. This was control in the sense of not-being-troubled-by rather than dominating, even if PSG's weird jitteriness after conceding did make Chelsea seem the more likely side to score in the second half of the first half.
Continue reading...